Graf von Westphalen hires Cleary lawyer for Düsseldorf launch
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German independent Graf von Westphalen has finally secured an office in Düsseldorf, over a year after it first announced plans for the opening.
Düsseldorf
The office will be headed by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton associate Malte Hiort, who joins Graf von Westphalen as a partner on 1 February. The firm plans to make further partner-level hires.
Hiot is a corporate lawyer and this will be a focus of the Düsseldorf office, along with real estate and public procurement.
Co-managing partners Christof Kleinmann and Robert Theissen said the office responded to the needs of the firm’s Chinese clients, many of whom had offices in the region, as well as filling a gap in Graf von Westphalen’s domestic coverage.
The firm first said it was looking to open in Düsseldorf in September 2010 (13 September 2010) following the loss of its Cologne and Freiburg offices.
While Düsseldorf has taken some time to realise, in the meantime Graf von Westphalen has grown in Munich through a local merger (25 November 2011) and established an alliance in Istanbul (23 August 2011).
The firm also has domestic offices in Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg as well as presences in Alicante, Brussels and Shanghai.
